If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

When you're online, prey that there wasn't a (totally irrelevant) update. I'm damned to wait for the thing to update because a bug for Windows 2000 was fixed and I'm not even using Windows 2000. Then, when a new title gets added to Steam, you will have to wait for it to update again, regardless of whether you want to purchase the new title or not.

And worse: while playing CS online, the LAG starts like hell when there's another update while you play.

Steam is a failure. Other companies got it right: simply use your CD-key to play online. It can't be cracked. (It can be cracked for non-online play of course, but Steam has been cracked too for ages now.)

Guys: I realize I'm walking into this conversation late, but it's obvious - neither of you, nor many of the other authors I've seen in this thread, own or use Steam.

Steam DOES allow you to play single-player games without being connected to the internet. It's called "offline-mode", and it warns you about it any time you start Steam and aren't on the net.

Too bad that I've seen Steam refuse to start an app because the system wasn't online. :P We had a guest come over one time and he brought his laptop with him. Our wireless wasn't set up at the time, and he tried to play Portal in offline mode. It wouldn't let him start the game. He could play Half-Life 2, but not Portal. Once we got the wireless on and let him connect, Portal started.

You Sir are a liar... and this in two way:
1) I am owner of Steam. I had to work with it in the past and belief me I hate this buggy shit of DRM hell

2) Offline mode is "gray theory". In practise it does not work. If I disable networking and try to go offline mode Steam shows me the middle finger not even starting anything.

So with other words:
1) Steam sucked in the beginning
2) Steam sucks still today and
3) Steam will suck in the future

Obviously, you don't know what you're doing. I've installed Steam, and my games on three different systems and never had any of the difficulties you describe.

I took the following screenshot just now (note the offline mode Steam system tray icon, as well as the KDE network manager icon showing that I have no connectivity). Here's what I did:

1) I unplugged my network cable. i.e. NO networking.
2) Started steam (got offline mode message).
3) Started CounterStrike: Source
4) Created a new server, with 16 bots.
5) Played and took screenshot.

If you want assistance figuring out what you're doing wrong, I would be happy to help.

Don't get me wrong: If a native Linux Steam client and Source engine were available, I'd be shaking Valve's hands. If they let me transfer the Windows versions I had already bought, it would be high-fives all around, and... if they removed all DRM completely it would be a freaking mosh pit of gratitude. But, I won't abide people making the case for Linux on things that are completely untrue. We're better than that.

Too bad that I've seen Steam refuse to start an app because the system wasn't online. :P We had a guest come over one time and he brought his laptop with him. Our wireless wasn't set up at the time, and he tried to play Portal in offline mode. It wouldn't let him start the game. He could play Half-Life 2, but not Portal. Once we got the wireless on and let him connect, Portal started.

Had he ever started Portal on that system before? My understanding is that you need to be online the first time you play a game. After that, you can play single-player offline forever.

Perhaps he could play HL2 because he had started that online before, but had never started Portal while online?

Obviously, you don't know what you're doing. I've installed Steam, and my games on three different systems and never had any of the difficulties you describe.

I took the following screenshot just now (note the offline mode Steam system tray icon, as well as the KDE network manager icon showing that I have no connectivity). Here's what I did:

1) I unplugged my network cable. i.e. NO networking.
2) Started steam (got offline mode message).
3) Started CounterStrike: Source
4) Created a new server, with 16 bots.
5) Played and took screenshot.

If you want assistance figuring out what you're doing wrong, I would be happy to help.

Don't get me wrong: If a native Linux Steam client and Source engine were available, I'd be shaking Valve's hands. If they let me transfer the Windows versions I had already bought, it would be high-fives all around, and... if they removed all DRM completely it would be a freaking mosh pit of gratitude. But, I won't abide people making the case for Linux on things that are completely untrue. We're better than that.

I would have loved to reduce it in *that* post, but the limited editor of this board won't allow you to set up a preview at a smaller size.

If anyone from Phoronix is reading, I would like to make that an official request - allow us to set the width and height of images. I wanted to allow them to see the details of my 1680x1050 desktop, but a 640x480 preview would have been nice.

No idea what you do but here and all places I tried it simply refuses to do anything sane. But this doesn't astonish me. If you had the "SDK Mess" I had when I had to write the Blender SMD exporter then you would know what hell means. Lucky me I'm not required to touch this bitch anymore ( and this means: NO I'M NO MORE DEVELOPING THE EXPORTER... blame sucky steam for this ).

That said in my particular case it doesn't matter that much since the dev-station requires connection to the server anyways for shared directories hence this machine is online already and on my laptop I would never put such a shit in the first place